concept music development

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Saviour of Rudra is a metalcore song I composed for a 3D retro shooter called “Zeal“. The chief developer of the game – Henrik Wollmann – came to me one day and asked me to write the story for his videogame.

I said to him: “Ok. But I also have an idea for a cool song for your game.” So the idea for the song “Saviour of Rudra” was born.

I asked Anny Missix – a great metal singer from the German band “Hellwerk” – to sing the vocals for Saviour of Rudra. And she really wanted to. This was worth it to mix and master the song in a professional music studio. So I went to the Never Ending Musicstudio in Regensburg, Germany, and showed the demo song to Basti, the owner of the studio. He liked it very much and put a lot of time and heart into the mixing and mastering of Saviour of Rudra.

Finally you can listen to the song on the progshot Soundcloud page. Enjoy!

Infos about Zeal: https://www.facebook.com/Zeal-575647459133826/
Infos about Never Ending Music: https://www.facebook.com/NeverEndingMusicTonstudio/

1. Self-referred and Visible
– details of your protagonist (“Feel the sweat break on my brow” – Iron Maiden)
– his outfit – what does he wear? (“…of white skin on red leather” – Deftones)
– how does he move?
– his look – does he have a beard, glasses etc.?

2. Self-referred and Invisible
– other senses – what does he hear or smell?
– is he suffering from pain?
– what are the protagonist’s future plans?(“Following our will and wind we may just go where no one’s been” – Tool)
– in what mood is he? angry? sad?

3. Environmental and Visible
– location – where does the story take place?
– what events happen? a disaster? (“Infernal machines arise, flesh and steel collide” – Symphony X)
– what’s the weather like?
– what time of day is it? morning? evening? (“In the cold light of morning, while everyone’s yawning” – Placebo)

4. Environmental and Invisible
– what year is it? at some point in the future?
– what time is it? (“11 a.m., by now you would think that I would be up” – Incubus)
– what is the temperature in the room / outside?
– does the political situation play a role in the story? (“A black flag and a red star, a rising sun loomin’ over Los Angeles” – Rage against the Machine)

You don’t have to use ALL of these aspects in your song, of course. But the more you use, the more images you give the audience. And the closer you get to them.

I also design for other bands and musicians, parallel to my own concept music projects. Great challenges that make fun and inspire my own work. But what is important to get the right design for your image?

As a band or musician you should
1. Focus on one music style
2. Think about what’s your philosopy
3. Get inspiration from other Band designs
4. Scribble your idea on paper
5. Communicate it with a designer, there is no time to lose!

You can also try it yourself, of course. There are a lot of free tools to make cool designs.

A few days ago, I produced a demo of the song “Finale – The Journey”. It is the seventh and last song on the concept album project “Space Escapism Opera”. “Finale – The Journey” is an instrumental progressive metal track that closes the curtain of the epic science fiction story on the album.

Markus Vogel from the band “Damaged Beyond Repair” (https://soundcloud.com/d-b-r) played and recorded the guitars. He mixed the guitar recordings in his home studio and sent me the files. This is the way songs are produced today. The other instruments were programmed for the demo.
There is still the crowdfunding campaign running for the professional production of the concept album. Read more on https://www.startnext.com/space-escapism-opera

The main character from the concept album “Space Escapism Opera” will become a reward for the crowdfunding of the album. This is the prototype, made by my wife. The real reward will be bigger than this.

One day, Spike and me wanted to produce a new, awesome thing. Spike is a great musician and friend of mine. I told him from this idea, to combine relaxation music and doom. For me, these two styles work great together, because they want to put the listener into a kind of trance with their slow rhythms and repeating melodies.

We wrote a story concept and had some jam sessions to compose different melodies. In an iterative process the song parts became more and more refined. I also painted the pictures, we wanted to reflect with the music. After half an year the result was there: The Silence Cometh – 3 Chapters to Redemption.

The 3 chapters “Dreaming Sun”, “Pendulum Clock of Modulation” and “God of Darkness, Lord of Nightmares” are concepted as a kind of symmetric structure. The first chapter is similar to the third chapter, the second chapter works as the mirror, that changes the positive melodies before into negative melodies behind.